Origin of the species: what a state we're in

Debra Jopson

It's a clunky name, but the people of NSW should be grateful that the very colonial moniker given their state makes it almost impossible to herd them into one descriptor, such as ''Territorians'' or ''Queenslanders''.

''New South Welshmen'' excludes half the population and ''New South Welshpeople'' is so awful that even the most provincially minded spin-meisters shy away from it, so it remains a term used mainly in jest.

"Any NSW politician yearning for the hyperbole available to those over the border should just try substituting ''New South Welshpeople'' for ''Queenslanders'' in former Labor premier Anna Bligh's [pictured] emotional speech about the resilience of her state's residents during the floods." Photo: Glen Hunt

As in a tweet from John Band of the US last year: ''New South Welshpeople: does anyone give a shit about NSW as an entity, or are we loving Australia + hating hipsters from Melbourne.''

Who knows what he has against hipsters. But he got one thing right: The advent of the State of Origin may be the only occasion where anyone cares about this part of Australia which Captain Cook named in ignorant bliss, before its final borders were even drawn.

At State of Origin time, when provincialism reigns, there's a tendency to sentimentalise the citizens' attachment to NSW and so it was yesterday when Blues coach Ricky Stuart was described on smh.com.au as ''a passionate man as well as a New South Welshman''.

However, sportswriters and subeditors have souls and so baulk at compounding the crime against the poetry of the language. You are not likely to find any female athlete called a ''New South Welshwoman''.

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Plug that phrase into Google and the search engine revolts, throwing up references to ''New South Welshman''.

Any NSW politician yearning for the hyperbole available to those over the border should just try substituting ''New South Welshpeople'' for ''Queenslanders'' in former Labor premier Anna Bligh's emotional speech about the resilience of her state's residents during the floods.

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''We're the people that they breed tough, north of the border. We're the ones that they knock down, and we get up again.''

It had those of us outside looking in both weeping and wondering if we would not be able to pick ourselves up after a knockdown because of the geographical quirk of living south of the border. I used to think Queenslanders were houses until Bligh's speech.

But for anyone who has ever spent any time in Darwin or Alice Springs, there's never any doubt about Territorians, as constructed by their politicians, being a people apart, united in a righteous provincial fight against the southerners.

As a general rule, it appears the closer the political entity is to the frontier, the greater the frequency with which the people who happen to live within its boundaries must be identified as a special group with just a little more spunk than the rest of us.

Thus the Northern Territory's blue-singlet beer drinkers are lumped in their aspirations with the women with pink and yellow hair who have migrated from inner Sydney or Melbourne to work in community services, along with the traditional Aboriginal painter living in red dust Papunya.

The Country Liberal Party is a national leader in milking provincialism for political purposes and may be in opposition only because Labor learnt its tricks.

In its 20-page manifesto released in March before the elections, the CLP has at least 17 references to ''Territorians,'' who have apparently slipped from their position of superiority since the CLP lost power.

''Territorians will once again enjoy a lifestyle the envy of other Australians, built around an incredible environment and climate,'' is the first promise.

And this will be done with less government: ''Not more! And a less intrusive government where policies originate in the Territory for Territorians - not in Canberra!''

Only a dozen years ago, a Senate report found that the NT's controversial laws on mandatory sentencing which led to a disproportionate number of Aboriginal juveniles being incarcerated for minor property offences may breach Australia's international treaty obligations, contravening the rights of the child.

The then CLP chief minister Denis Burke told the ABC's PM program: ''Don't try and tell Territorians that they don't know what they're doing. And don't try and tell Territorians that we're racist and don't care for Aboriginal people. They are integral to the fabric of this community. We love the fact we've got 27 per cent Aboriginal. We're proud of it.''

Quite a lot of people, including many pushy southerners, told Territorians that they did not care well enough for Aboriginal people and the laws were eventually overturned.

This week, it's the Western Australians who claim they're being pushed around. Their Premier, Colin Barnett, spruiking a bigger cut of GST revenue, said that unless Canberra got up to pace with the WA economy, the community would move away from the rest of Australia and cosy up to Asia.

''That's not a threat, that's a reality,'' he said, ''and I don't think that is understood on the east coast.''

He couldn't have been talking about those of us who live in NSW. We're from the south. It says so in our clunky name, the one we should keep because it saves us from provincialism.